Drought continues to weight on Morocco’s job market

Drought continues to slash jobs in rural areas leading to the surge of the unemployment rate to 13.3% in 2024, compared with 13% in 2023, the statistics agency HCP said.

The number of unemployed people in Morocco reached 1.638 million people last year, ringing the alarm bell for the government.

The unemployment rate was notably worst among the youth at 36.7% and women at 19.4%, HCP said.

A report by the HCP in 2023 noted that climate volatility causes job losses in the farming sector, propelling a labor migration to low-added value service jobs such as retail and handicrafts, while increasing the size of the informal sector.

Informal labor accounted for 67% of Morocco’s job market which is characterized by a low women participation.

Nearly most or 97% of all jobs in the farming sector were informal. It accounted overall for half informal jobs in the country due in part to the seasonal character of labor.

Jobs lost in the farming sector were offset by job creation in services.

HCP actually said some 82,000 jobs were created in 2024.

“After a loss of 157,000 jobs a year earlier, the national economy created 82,000 jobs in 2024, as a result of creating 162,000 positions in urban areas and losing 80,000 in rural areas,” HCP explained in its latest information note on the labor market situation.